Evergreen shrubs are woody plants that retain their foliage throughout the year, unlike deciduous shrubs which shed their leaves in autumn. This persistent leaf cover means they provide structure, colour, and visual interest in the garden during every season, including the bleakest winter months when the rest of the garden may be bare and dormant. Their year-round presence makes them the backbone of most well-designed planting schemes.
From a practical standpoint, evergreen shrubs are among the most useful plants a gardener can choose. They form natural screens and windbreaks, define boundaries, muffle noise, and create sheltered microclimates that benefit the plants growing around them. Because their foliage is always present, they also suppress weeds effectively by shading the ground beneath them, reducing the need for regular intervention.
Ecologically, evergreen shrubs play a disproportionately important role in the garden. Their dense, year-round foliage provides shelter and nesting sites for birds and small mammals during cold weather, while many species produce flowers and berries that supply food when little else is available. The continuous cover also supports populations of beneficial insects and other invertebrates that overwinter in sheltered spots among the stems and leaves.
In terms of care, established evergreen shrubs are generally among the least demanding of garden plants. Most require pruning only once or twice a year to maintain their shape, and once their root systems are properly established they can tolerate periods of drought, exposure, and poor soil with considerably more resilience than their deciduous counterparts. This combination of low maintenance, year-round structure, and ecological value explains why they remain a cornerstone of gardens and landscapes around the world.
Best fast growing Evergreen Shrubs
Leyland Cypress (× Cuprocyparis leylandii)
One of the fastest-growing conifers in the world, Leyland Cypress can put on up to 90 cm of growth per year under good conditions. Its dense, feathery foliage forms a tall, columnar shape that makes it enormously popular as a privacy screen or windbreak. It thrives in full sun and is tolerant of a wide range of soil types, though it dislikes waterlogged ground.
Photinia (Photinia × fraseri ‘Red Robin’)
Photinia is prized as much for its vivid red new growth as for its speed — it can grow 30–60 cm per year. The glossy leaves age to a rich dark green, creating a striking two-tone effect through much of the season. It responds well to regular clipping, which also encourages repeated flushes of the bright red shoots, and works superbly as a colourful hedge.
Viburnum tinus
This dense, bushy Mediterranean native grows at a steady 30–40 cm per year and earns its popularity by producing clusters of pink-white flowers from late autumn all the way through spring, followed by metallic blue-black berries. It tolerates shade, coastal exposure, and urban pollution, making it one of the most versatile hedging shrubs available.
Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus)
Cherry Laurel is one of the workhorses of formal hedging, growing 30–60 cm per year. Its large, glossy leaves create a very solid, impenetrable screen, and it bears fragrant white flower spikes in spring. Remarkably tolerant of shade and dry soil beneath trees, it is one of very few large shrubs that genuinely performs in difficult spots.
Portuguese Laurel (Prunus lusitanica)
Slightly more refined than Cherry Laurel, Portuguese Laurel has smaller, darker leaves with attractively red-tinted stalks and produces elegant racemes of white flowers in early summer. It grows at roughly 30–45 cm per year and is hardier and more drought-tolerant than its cousin, making it an excellent choice for formal topiary as well as hedging.
Privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium)
Oval-leaved Privet is one of the most forgiving hedging plants, capable of growing 30–60 cm in a single season. Its semi-evergreen to fully evergreen nature (depending on winter severity), combined with its ability to thrive in almost any soil and tolerate heavy clipping, has made it ubiquitous in urban gardens. The golden form, ‘Aureum’, brings a bright, cheerful note to shady spots.
Escallonia
Escallonia is a tough, fast-growing coastal shrub that can add 45–60 cm per year in a sheltered position. Small, glossy leaves and an abundance of tubular flowers in pink, red, or white through summer and autumn make it a superb ornamental hedge. It is highly resistant to salt spray, and several varieties carry the RHS Award of Garden Merit.
Pittosporum tenuifolium
This New Zealand native grows at a brisk 30–60 cm per year and is available in a wide range of leaf colours, from silver-grey to deep purple. Its small, wavy-edged leaves and near-black stems give it a distinctive elegance that suits both informal planting and tightly clipped formal hedges. It performs best in mild, maritime climates.
Griselinia littoralis
Griselinia is one of the finest hedging plants for coastal gardens, growing up to 60 cm per year in mild conditions. Its apple-green, leathery leaves are highly resistant to salt winds, and its naturally dense, upright habit means it needs little intervention to form a good screen. In sheltered inland positions it establishes quickly and suppresses weeds effectively.
Oleander (Nerium oleander)
In warm, Mediterranean-type climates oleander is almost aggressively vigorous, growing 60–90 cm or more per year. It produces spectacular clusters of flowers in shades from white through pink to deep red, and its long, grey-green leaves are attractive all year. It is extremely drought-tolerant once established, though all parts of the plant are toxic and it is frost-sensitive in cooler climates.
Bamboo (Fargesia/Phyllostachys species)
Clumping bamboos like Fargesia murielae and Fargesia robusta are among the fastest-growing structural evergreens available, capable of putting on 60–90 cm of height per year in good conditions. They create beautiful, rustling screens with feathery, arching canes and are surprisingly hardy. Running types like Phyllostachys grow even faster but require root barriers to prevent invasive spread.
Berberis darwinii
Darwin’s Barberry grows at a solid 30–45 cm per year, producing an impenetrably spiny hedge that is also one of the most flamboyant in flower. Vivid orange-yellow blossoms smother the dark, holly-like foliage in spring, followed by blue-purple berries beloved by birds. It is virtually maintenance-free and tolerates exposed, windy sites.
Osmanthus × burkwoodii
This hybrid Osmanthus grows 30–45 cm per year into a neat, rounded shape clothed in small, toothed, dark-green leaves. In spring it produces masses of tiny white flowers with one of the sweetest fragrances of any garden shrub. Slow in its first year or two, it accelerates noticeably once established and makes a beautiful, fragrant informal hedge.
Ilex × altaclerensis (Highclere Holly)
The Highclere Hollies are more vigorous than the common holly, growing up to 40 cm per year. Their large, often only lightly spined leaves allow faster growth and make them easier to work with, while still providing the security and wildlife value of a traditional holly hedge. Many forms produce abundant red or yellow berries when a male pollinator is nearby.
Abelia × grandiflora
This graceful shrub grows 45–60 cm per year and offers an unusually long flowering season, with small, tubular pink-white blooms produced from midsummer right through to the first frosts. Even after the flowers drop, the persistent reddish-bronze calyces provide weeks of additional colour. It is highly attractive to bees and butterflies and associates well with grasses and herbaceous perennials.
Mahonia × media
The Mahonia hybrids such as ‘Charity’ and ‘Winter Sun’ grow at around 30–45 cm per year and are among the most architectural of all shrubs, with bold, pinnate, spine-toothed leaves arranged in dramatic whorls. From late autumn through winter they produce long racemes of bright yellow flowers with a rich, lily-of-the-valley fragrance, providing nectar at a time when little else is in bloom.
Forsythia
While technically semi-deciduous in very cold spells, Forsythia behaves as an evergreen in mild climates and is one of the most energetic of all shrubs, growing 60–90 cm per year. Before the leaves appear in early spring, the bare stems are completely smothered in brilliant golden-yellow flowers — a sight that is one of the most reliable signals of the season changing. It is virtually indestructible.
Hebe
The larger-growing Hebe species, such as Hebe salicifolia and Hebe ‘Great Orme’, grow at a brisk 30–45 cm per year and flower prolifically over a very long season. Their compact habit and glossy foliage make them excellent low hedging or border plants, and they thrive particularly well in coastal conditions. Smaller, bun-forming Hebes are slower and should not be confused with these vigorous hedging forms.
Lonicera nitida (Box-leaved Honeysuckle)
Lonicera nitida is one of the most amenable of all hedging plants, growing up to 60 cm per year and tolerating extraordinarily hard clipping into almost any shape. Its tiny, glossy, box-like leaves create a very fine texture and it responds well to repeated cutting throughout the growing season. It is ideal for topiary and intricate formal work in situations where true Box has struggled with blight.
Pyracantha (Firethorn)
Pyracantha is both vigorous and spectacular, growing 30–60 cm per year. Its thorny branches make it a superb security screen when trained against a wall or fence, and in autumn it is ablaze with heavy clusters of berries in orange, red, or yellow that persist well into winter, providing a vital food source for thrushes, waxwings, and other birds.
Cotoneaster lacteus
This large, arching species is one of the finest evergreen Cotoneasters, growing at 40–60 cm per year into a broad, graceful form. Clusters of white flowers appear in summer, succeeded by heavy crops of red berries that hold on the plant well into late winter. Its willingness to grow against a north-facing wall or in dry shade is a considerable practical virtue.
Camellia japonica
In sheltered, mildly acid conditions Camellias can grow a surprising 30–45 cm per year, building into large, formal-looking shrubs with exceptionally beautiful flowers in a wide palette of whites, pinks, and reds produced from late winter to mid-spring. The glossy, dark foliage is handsome all year round and provides an excellent backdrop for other plants when not in flower.
Rhododendron ponticum
Common Rhododendron is one of the most vigorous of all ericaceous shrubs, growing 60–90 cm or more in the right conditions — namely acid, moisture-retentive soils and dappled woodland shade. It produces impressive trusses of mauve-pink flowers in late spring and can ultimately become a very large, almost tree-like shrub. Its vigour means it should be used with awareness of its potential spread.
Aucuba japonica (Spotted Laurel)
Spotted Laurel grows at a reliable 30–45 cm per year and is one of the most tolerant evergreens in cultivation, thriving in deep shade, dry soil, and urban pollution that would defeat most other shrubs. The bold, yellow-spotted leaves of varieties like ‘Crotonifolia’ bring genuine light to dark corners, and female plants produce clusters of bright red berries if a male is present nearby.
Laurus nobilis (Bay Laurel)
Sweet Bay grows at a steady 40–60 cm per year in a sheltered position and is one of the most useful shrubs in any garden, providing year-round structure, wind-resistant glossy foliage, and a continuous harvest of aromatic leaves for cooking. It clips beautifully into pyramids, lollipops, or cones, and in mild climates it can ultimately become a substantial small tree.
Elaeagnus × ebbingei
This hybrid is one of the fastest-growing and most reliable of all hedging evergreens, putting on up to 60 cm per year in most conditions. The large, leathery leaves are silver-green above and silvery beneath, catching and reflecting light attractively. In autumn it produces small, inconspicuous flowers of extraordinary, penetrating fragrance — one of the most memorable scents in the autumn garden.
Choisya ternata (Mexican Orange Blossom)
Mexican Orange Blossom grows at 30–45 cm per year into a naturally rounded, very elegant dome of bright, glossy, trifoliate leaves. It earns its name from the richly fragrant, white star-flowers that appear generously in spring and often again in late summer or autumn. Both the foliage and flowers are aromatic when brushed, and Choisya × dewitteana ‘Aztec Pearl’ is a notably vigorous and free-flowering selection.
Nandina domestica (Heavenly Bamboo)
Heavenly Bamboo grows at 30–45 cm per year and offers a remarkable range of seasonal interest in one compact plant: elegant, pinnate leaves that emerge flushed red-bronze, turn green through summer, and colour brilliantly again in autumn and winter; clusters of white flowers in midsummer; and large sprays of red berries that persist for months. It is exceptionally hardy for a plant of such subtropical elegance.
Sarcococca (Sweet Box)
Sarcococca, particularly S. confusa and S. hookeriana, grows at around 20–30 cm per year — modest by the standards of this list but remarkable given its ability to perform in conditions of dry, deep shade that completely defeat other shrubs. Its tiny winter flowers, barely visible against the polished dark foliage, carry an extraordinarily powerful, honey-like fragrance that drifts across the garden on still winter days.
Garrya elliptica (Silk Tassel Bush)
Garrya elliptica grows at 30–45 cm per year and is most spectacular in the depths of winter, when the male form drapes itself with long, grey-green catkins up to 30 cm in length — one of the most dramatic sights in the winter garden. It thrives against a north- or west-facing wall where little else would flourish, and its dark, wavy-edged foliage is attractive all year as a backdrop to other plants.